About

Overview

Students will master data analysis, modeling, and spreadsheet use with BUSINESS ANALYTICS: DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, 5E! This quantitative methods text provides users with the tools to succeed with a teach-by-example approach, student-friendly writing style, and complete Excel 2013 integration. It is also compatible with Excel 2010 and 2007. Problem sets and cases provide realistic examples to show the relevance of the material. The Companion Website includes: the Palisade DecisionTools Suite (@RISK, StatTools, PrecisionTree, TopRank, RISKOptimizer, NeuralTools, and Evolver); SolverTable, which allows you to do sensitivity analysis; data and solutions files, PowerPoint slides, and tutorial videos.

Features/Benefits

Access to the Academic Version of the DecisionTools® Suite by Palisade Corporation: This suite includes six separate add-ins: @RISK, an add-in for simulation; StatTools, an add-in for statistical data analysis; PrecisionTree, a graphical-based add-in for creating and analyzing decision trees; TopRank, an add-in for performing what-if analyses; NeuralTools®, an add-in for estimating complex, nonlinear relationships; and EvolverTM, an add-in for performing optimization (an alternative to Excel's Solver). The DecisionTools Suite is available for instructors and students on the textbook website.

Access to SolverTable: SolverTable, a supplement to Excel's built-in Solver for optimization, is available for instructors and students on the textbook website.

Changes in Excel®. To allow for compatibility with different versions of Excel®, "Changes in Excel" boxes highlight changes in Excel® made in version 2010 or 2013.

Plenty of Problems and Cases. This edition includes approximately 1,000 problems, plus about 40 cases, for testing students' mastery of the material. Complete Excel®-based solutions to all of these exercises and cases are available.

Engaging Opening Vignettes. Each chapter opens with a vignette that sets the stage for the chapter content by focusing on why the chapter's concepts are important in a business context.

Highlighting Key Concepts. Critical concepts and equations are set off in boxes to make future reference easier, and margin notes and "Fundamental Insight" features emphasize the most relevant, practical information from each chapter.

Easy-to-Follow Step-by-Step Examples. This edition includes over 130 interesting examples that draw from real business situations or events. The solution to each example is worked out in a clear, step-by-step method that uses screenshots to make it easy for students to understand and replicate.

What's New

Business Analytics Focus: The term business analytics is now in the title of the book. This term is now ubiquitous in our area, being extremely popular with both academics and businesspeople, and we are pleased that our methods are now so highly regarded.

Updated to Office 2013: As we were creating this edition of the book, Microsoft released Office 2013. Therefore, all of the screenshots in the book are from this newer version. However, the changes from 2010 to 2013, or even from 2007 to 2013, are not that extensive, at least for our purposes. Therefore, if you are still using Office 2007 or 2010, this book should work fine for you.

Data Mining Coverage: Chapter 17 on data mining is completely new. The topic itself is huge, with many books of various mathematical levels devoted entirely to it, and it is impossible to cover it adequately in a single chapter. However, we believe this new chapter provides an exciting, hands-on introduction to data mining.

Content Reductions: Based on user surveys, we deleted portions of various chapters, particularly Chapter 4 (Probability and Probability Distributions), that were used least often.

Tutorial Videos: To help students learn, we created more than 50 videos that explain concepts and work through examples. Students can access the videos for free on the textbook companion website. A complete list of videos is available on the website, and video icons appear in the margins of the textbook next to relevant topics.

Updated Problems: We modified a number of problems, usually to update their data, and we added several brand-new problems. We also created a file, essentially a database of problems, that is available to instructors. This file, DADM 5e Problem Database.xlsx, indicates the context of each of the problems and shows the correspondence between problems in this edition and problems in the previous edition.

Suggested Solutions for Conceptual Questions: In addition to Problems, each chapter also includes Conceptual Questions to assess student comprehension of concepts on a broad level. New for this edition, suggested solutions for these Conceptual Questions have been provided.

Alternate Formats

Choose the Format that Best Fits Your Student's Budget and Course Goals

Supplements

Instructor Supplements

Instructor Supplements

All supplements have been updated in coordination with the main title. Select the main title's "About the Solution" tab, then select "What's New" for updates specific to title's edition.
For more information about these supplements, or to obtain them, contact your Learning Consultant.

Website
(ISBN-10: 1133588115 | ISBN-13: 9781133588115)

tutorial.xlsm (which contains a useful tutorial for getting up to speed in Excel), and Chapters 18-20 and Appendix A. Also, new for this edition, the website features more than 50 videos that explain concepts and work through examples.

The Student Solutions Manual contains the worked solutions to most of the odd-numbered problems found in the text. Problems indicated by a blue box in the textbook have a corresponding answer in the Student Solutions Manual. The Student Solutions Manual is available for purchase on CengageBrain.com. (Instructors have access to ALL solutions on the instructor companion website.)

Student Supplements

Student Supplements

All supplements have been updated in coordination with the main title. Select the main title's "About the Solution" tab, then select "What's New" for updates specific to title's edition.
For more information about these supplements, or to obtain them, contact your Learning Consultant.

The Student Solutions Manual contains the worked solutions to most of the odd-numbered problems found in the text. Problems indicated by a blue box in the textbook have a corresponding answer in the Student Solutions Manual. The Student Solutions Manual is available for purchase on CengageBrain.com.

Meet the Author

About the Author

S. Christian Albright

S. Christian Albright received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Stanford in 1968 and his Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford in 1972. Since then, he has been teaching in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He has taught courses in management science, computer simulation, and statistics to all levels of business students: undergraduates, MBAs, and doctoral students. His current interest is in spreadsheet modeling, including development of VBA applications in Excel®. Dr. Albright has published more than 20 articles in leading operations research journals in the area of applied probability. He has also published a number of successful textbooks, including DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, and SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS.

S. Christian Albright received his B.S. degree in mathematics from Stanford in 1968 and his Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford in 1972. Since then, he has been teaching in the Operations and Decision Technologies Department in the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He has taught courses in management science, computer simulation, and statistics to all levels of business students: undergraduates, MBAs, and doctoral students. His current interest is in spreadsheet modeling, including development of VBA applications in Excel®. Dr. Albright has published more than 20 articles in leading operations research journals in the area of applied probability. He has also published a number of successful textbooks, including DATA ANALYSIS AND DECISION MAKING, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, and SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS.

Wayne L. Winston

Wayne L. Winston is Professor Emeritus of Decision Sciences at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is now a Professor of Decision and Information Sciences at the Bauer College at the University of Houston. He has won more than 45 teaching awards, including the school-wide MBA award six times. His current interest is in showing how spreadsheet models can be used to solve business problems in all disciplines, particularly in finance, sports, and marketing. In addition to publishing more than 20 articles in leading journals, Dr. Winston has written such successful textbooks as OPERATIONS RESEARCH: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, SIMULATION MODELING WITH @RISK, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS, MATHLETICS, DATA ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS MODELING WITH EXCEL 2013, MARKETING ANALYTICS, and FINANCIAL MODELS USING SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION. He received his B.S. degree in mathematics from MIT and his Ph.D. in operations research from Yale.

Wayne L. Winston is Professor Emeritus of Decision Sciences at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and is now a Professor of Decision and Information Sciences at the Bauer College at the University of Houston. He has won more than 45 teaching awards, including the school-wide MBA award six times. His current interest is in showing how spreadsheet models can be used to solve business problems in all disciplines, particularly in finance, sports, and marketing. In addition to publishing more than 20 articles in leading journals, Dr. Winston has written such successful textbooks as OPERATIONS RESEARCH: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING: APPLICATIONS AND ALGORITHMS, SIMULATION MODELING WITH @RISK, DATA ANALYSIS FOR MANAGERS, SPREADSHEET MODELING AND APPLICATIONS, MATHLETICS, DATA ANALYSIS AND BUSINESS MODELING WITH EXCEL 2013, MARKETING ANALYTICS, and FINANCIAL MODELS USING SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION. He received his B.S. degree in mathematics from MIT and his Ph.D. in operations research from Yale.